Tuesday, September 23, 2008

It's been bugging me for some time that the Eurogamer comparison videos I produce are horrendously over-engineered in relation to the actual end result, so I decided to make more use of the HD captures and produce download-only files that show the full resolution and frame rate of each game, running in realtime. The first one I produced, Soul Calibur IV, was beautiful enough to convince me to carry on with all the others and incorporate the whole process into the existing workflow. Enough bandwidth has been thrown at these videos to make them look almost passable for the actual game running on the console itself.The edited files are encoded into VC-1 using Microsoft Expression Encoder 2, and the resultant WMVs are playable on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and fast PCs (any dual core unit should work fine).So, here are the links required to get your hands on the downloadable goodies:

Don't expect scintillating gameplay here, nor expertly mixed audio. The clips are specifically captured to be synced for technical comparison. As it is, in all of the releases above, the actual gameplay is identical cross-platform any way.

Mission Statement

This blog is based on technical and gaming issues based on video captures acquired using proprietary Digital Foundry technology.

Hardware Details

Digital Foundry hardware is created by games people, for games people. Our TrueHD solution is the only system available capable of acquiring video at all resolutions up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, while our portable capture solutions are perfect for games media professionals on the move. What makes Digital Foundry different? Our hardware is made exclusively for games, not cameras, meaning plug and play direct connection along with full resolution and frame rate support.